


Derailed Metaphors

by todisturbtheuniverse



Series: Tongues Will Wag [10]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Friendship, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 18:50:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9285386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse
Summary: Isabela likens her ongoing romance with Hawke to bullfighting. Merrill is unimpressed. Set during Act 3.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of silliness cobbled together for a writer’s group sprint this morning. The random prompt was, “the bullfighter’s dilemma.”

You could only go so long, flashing pretty bits of silk this way and that, before the beast you were dancing with just gored you to death out of frustration.

Isabela had seen it, a time or two in Antiva with Zevran, some skilled matador drawing out the event, longer and longer until his safety was a scrap of ribbon stretched thin, easily snapped. That was what you got for overstaying your welcome. The longer the dance went on, the greater the odds that you'd get a pointy-but-not-pointy-enough horn stuck right in your gut. Jostled around in there to puncture the maximum number of organs, maybe break a few ribs.

"I don't think it's quite the same, Isabela," Merrill said, dipping her toes in the questionable water lapping up around the docks. Isabela had long since given up telling her to stop; she kept her boots on, herself, and her feet well away from it. "You make it sound so awful."

"It _is_ , kitten."

Merrill glanced up at her, something world-weary and old in her eyes. "It sounds wonderful."

"What, getting a bull's horn stuck in your soft bits?"

" _No_. Love." A smile curled up one side of her mouth, a little dreaminess drifting across her face. A little wistfulness, too. "I don't see why you don't just tell her. You know how she looks at you."

"Sometimes that's not enough."

Merrill tipped her head a bit to the side. "She missed you awfully while you were away, you know."

"You're not making me feel any better."

"I did, too," Merrill went on, as if she hadn't heard at all, "but it was worse for Hawke." Surely the horn was all the way through her gut and sticking out her back now, much like the Arishok's sword had cut clean through Hawke. She'd seen the scar. She'd seen a lot of awful things, but for some reason, that was worst of all.

"She could hardly even talk about you," Merrill added. "Whenever it came up, she'd just do something outrageous to distract everyone, you know, like—"

"Walking across the bar on her hands right after saying, 'Varric, watch this?'"

Merrill nodded eagerly. "She did that _at least_ twenty-six times. I think it was her favorite. See! You know her so well."

"I don't like talking about this."

"You know she'd never keep you here," Merrill said, utterly serene, as if the bull wasn't helpfully shaking Isabela in midair right this instant. "I don't think she wants to stay forever, herself. She doesn't like Kirkwall."

"Well, who does?" Isabela said, and _sighed_. She hated herself for it.

"But you came back."

"Yes."

"For Hawke."

"Mostly."

Merrill leaned sideways against Isabela's shoulder, and Isabela leaned back. "I don't see why you can't just be together, then."

"We _are_ together. Sort of."

Merrill sighed now, and it was so rent with frustration that Isabela smiled. "For two people who like talking so much, you never say the things you ought to. And she's _never_ going to say it first."

"Why do you think that? Did she say so?"

"It's just Hawke's way, isn't it," Merrill said. "She'll do all these things for you, but at some point, you're on your own." Before Isabela could ask her to decode _that_ little tidbit, she added, "Besides, I've already told you. She didn't talk about you."

"At _all_?" This was somewhat disappointing. The bull had lost interest, now, put her down and ambled away to find better food.

"Sometimes, I think, but mostly just to Varric. For his stories. I wonder what stories he'll tell now."

They lapsed into silence, watching the sun set, far off on the ocean's horizon. With its passing came a new chill in the air; beside her, Merrill shivered.

Isabela was just about to suggest they get something to eat when footsteps reverberated through the pier, coming toward them. She glanced over her shoulder, hand automatically drifting toward a dagger—and there was the bull, of course, smile on her silly face, no paint decorating it for the present.

_Bulls are male_ , Isabela told herself, but she'd already sunk so deeply into this analogy that it didn't reassure her.

"This looks cozy," Hawke said, slinging a bag from her shoulder. "Mind if I join you?"

"Isabela and I were talking about _bullfighting_ ," Merrill said, all innocence; Isabela shot her a warning look. Anyone who thought Merrill was half as naive as she pretended deserved what they got, probably. She was positively devious when she wanted to be.

Hawke spread a blanket on the pier and sat, cross-legged, to begin removing items from the bag. Food, it turned out—fresh pie from Isabela's favorite Hightown vendor. Her mouth watered.

"Oh?" Hawke said. "What an odd topic."

"Apparently," Merrill said, turning to face Hawke fully and settle herself on the blanket, "they go into a ring with bulls, and antagonize them with bits of silk to make them dance."

"Maybe I should have used that strategy with the Arishok," Hawke said, amused, and offered up a slice of pie to Isabela.

"Mythal, I wish you wouldn't joke about that."

"Oh, what's the point of living through something so horrible if you don't get to joke about it?" Hawke asked, and smiled at Isabela, a softer thing by far than she deserved. Her heart still picked up speed, thinking about that fight, Hawke _screaming_. Three years and all the blood in between, and somehow Hawke's had been different, slippery and awful on her hands.

_Everything_ was awful, apparently. Balls.

"She's right, kitten," Isabela said. "How do we know we lived, otherwise?"

Merrill gave her a look so plainly frustrated that she had to laugh; Hawke, slicing another piece of pie, missed it entirely. Isabela took a bite, and the flaky pastry, the sweet berries, seemed to melt on her tongue. She hummed, pleased.

"I haven't had this in ages," she said to Hawke, who rolled her eyes.

"I'm surprised it wasn't your first stop on your way into town, the way you always begged me to buy one for you."

"Well," Isabela said, and her heart beat faster for a different—both more pleasant and more agonizing—reason now. "My first stop was you, so I suppose you know where you rate, now."

Merrill—the goose—grinned flat-out; Hawke's eyes, which has been so worn and weary lately, crinkled at the corners.

"Above pie," she said, very dryly, but her mouth pulled at one side the way it did when she had to fight a grin, fight it like her life depended on it. "How gratifying."

She understood, though; Isabela knew it. Perhaps they didn't say the things they ought to to one another, but they had always needed this middle ground, a language of their own, to understand. Create a bridge between matador and bull. Pie and sarcasm—that was the link.

It wasn't the first time a metaphor had gotten away from her.


End file.
